


Here and Now

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [173]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avenger Loki (Marvel), Avenger Reader (Marvel), Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff, Good Loki (Marvel), Literal Sleeping Together, Loki (Marvel) Feels, M/M, Memories, POV Loki (Marvel), Reader-Insert, Sharing a Bed, Watching Someone Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29278485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: Lying in bed beside you, the way he does every night lately, Loki thinks back on that first night you spent together, and marvels over you In the present.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [173]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 21
Kudos: 128





	Here and Now

**Author's Note:**

> A lovely lovely reader on Tumblr asked me to consider writing about [Shelter in Place](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24955138) but from Loki's POV, and y'all know that I'm never one to turn down the ability to revisit a lullaby I've already written, hah! If you haven't read it, you don't have to read it in order for this one to make sense! (Hopefully you all already know that by now, but...still!

It was still hard to believe.

Loki was not usually all that inclined towards incredulity. It was hard to faze him, really, especially given who he was and where he’d come from. But you had a way about you. To be anything except taken aback by the mere existence of _you_ felt...foolish. 

And Loki did not like feeling like a fool.

You were right there beside him, as you often were—no, as you _always_ were, lately—and deeply asleep. You slept most soundly when you shared your bed with him. He’d known that from the very first night you slept together—that is, beside one another, in the same bed.

_“We can be adults and share the bed, right?”_

_Norns, he’d only just flopped down onto the bed in the room and already he could feel himself slipping off to sleep. That felt strange, given the extremely-close quarters he was currently sharing with you, but he didn’t have the energy to give it much thought. He wanted to let your question go unanswered, but something wouldn’t let him. He turned his head towards you and cracked his eyes open just enough to take in the sight._

_It didn’t take an expert to see that you were exhausted. The mission had been draining for the both of you. You’d worked hard, fought hard, and, now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember seeing you close your eyes for more than a minute or two this whole week. He must have been going delirious from lack of sleep, because he was suddenly overcome with an uncomfortably-intense desire to lift his arm towards you in invitation._ Come. Lie down with me. You need to rest. 

_But he choked that down and instead told you, in a rather icy tone of voice, that he wasn’t going to sleep on the floor._

Even now, he cringed at the memory. If he—present-day Loki—had heard the way he—the Loki in the motel room—spoke to you, he would have been livid. But you’d barely blinked, then, and you never brought it up to tease him. He was thankful for that. He was thankful for a lot of things when it came to you. He traced your profile with his eyes. It was hard to look away. Your eyes were darting back and forth beneath your eyelids, the lashes fluttering gently against your cheek. He couldn’t help but wonder what you were dreaming about. 

When he dreamed, he dreamed of you.

 _You’d disappeared into the washroom, and it wasn’t long before he heard you turn the shower on. Irritation stabbed through him—you didn’t need to wash, you needed to sleep. But he tried to push that away. He was not in the habit of worrying himself over Midgardians, and_ certainly _not over Avengers. He wanted to go back to dozing, but instead he found himself listening to the sounds you made. The spray of the water hitting your body. Your soft sigh, relief tinged with just the slightest hint of pain, likely caused by the water stinging your cuts and scrapes. If he allowed himself just a moment to imagine that he was there in the water with you, that you would permit him to soothe the sting with a gentle touch, to kiss your skin, to run his fingers through your hair, well...who would know?_

_It was silly. He was sleep-deprived, that was all._

_When you stepped back into the bedroom,_ _he couldn’t help but watch you. You_ _crouched for a moment_ _to put your things back into your bag. Some foolish part of him wanted to ask you if it’d been worth it. If you could sleep now. But his tongue felt too large, too clumsy, so he just watched you. And then you looked up and met his gaze. Something about your eyes that night...it felt like you could see right through him. Could you see what he’d been thinking? The idea was horrifying._

_“Shower works,” you said in a quiet voice, and then attempted a smile. He couldn’t stay here in this room with you right now. He dragged himself out of bed and said something about how manners required him to shower as well, and then locked himself in the bathroom._

_You’d left him a dry towel._

_That gentle consideration was all he could think about as he showered._

He moved still closer to you and slipped his arm around you to pull you against him. You were warm and supple and trusting like this, and perhaps he’d never be able to get enough of that. He pressed his lips to the back of your shoulder and breathed you in. You smelled like expensive soap, the soap he teased you for but loved all the same. It reminded him of that night in the motel. It reminded him of the way the scent of you had surrounded him in the shower, and then in the bed. 

_The sound of your heartbeat and your breathing made it clear that you weren’t asleep when he got out of the bathroom. Once again, he had to hold back his desire to snap at you for that, and instead went to turn out the light. You remained quiet as he put his own things away and slipped into the bed beside you. It had been a long, long time since he’d shared a bed with another. He could not allow himself any further flights of fancy. At best, you were coworkers. At worst, you wanted him dead. It was dangerous to forget that._

_“_ _Sweet dreams, Loki.” Your voice was already sleep-rough, as though you were closer to drifting off than he’d initially thought. But you still took the time to wish him well. Something squeezed in his chest. By the time he’d managed to get himself back under control, too much time had passed for it to be appropriate for him to return the gesture. Perhaps that was for the best._

In the night, he heard you make a quiet sound, something like a sigh or a whine. He was intimately familiar with most of your night-sounds, now: the sighs, the huffs, the mumbled nonsense when you weren’t feeling well. He tightened his arm in a kind of embrace, just in case that whine was a warning of nightmares, but your breathing was still calm and even. You purred and nestled even closer to him, and, if he was not mistaken, you said his name. You were asleep, dead to the world and utterly helpless, but still you knew who held you. And you allowed it. You delighted in it. He smiled and kissed your shoulder, then carefully sank his teeth into the tender flesh there. 

_The sound you made was quiet. It likely would not have woken him, if he’d had any success whatsoever in actually falling asleep. But he laid there, drifting and dozing and constantly aware of your presence beside him, so he had no trouble hearing it. A whimper. He did not move at first, instead listening for any sign of what was hurting you. Your back was to him. Even in the dark, he could see the way you clutched at your pillow, curling yourself around it as though for protection. He sat up a bit, and, just as he did, you groaned low in your throat._

_What should he do? Imagine waking from a nightmare only to find that you were lying beside one such as Loki. Would that be any better? He dithered for a few more moments, hating himself for not being more decisive, but then a_ _broken_ _“Please…” slipped out of your mouth, and spurred him to action._

_He touched your shoulder. When you didn’t flinch or start awake, he let his touch grow a little more heavy, and spread his fingers a little wider. He caressed your arm as he tried to decide whether to shake you awake. You sighed. It sounded a lot like your sigh in the bathroom, though thankfully without the pain. Relief, then? Merely from his touch?_

_“It’s alright,” he said in a low voice. “You’re only dreaming.”_

_“Loki…”_

_When you said his name, he froze, certain that he’d woken you, but you said nothing else. You did not pull away from him or try to laugh at yourself or apologize to him. You only relaxed your grip on the pillow and moved backwards a bit, as though seeking him out. Maybe it was the late hour, or the lack of sleep, or the darkness, or just the way you said his name, but he did not retreat. He slipped his arm around your waist and pulled you in close, and breathed in the smell of your soap—or your shampoo, or your skin, who knew?—and fell into a peaceful sleep._

He often thought back to the morning that followed. Waking with you in his arms felt right in a way that he’d never really known before. Even before his discovery of his true origins, Loki was not particularly well-acquainted with the feeling of belonging. But that morning, you had been so warm in his arms, and your breathing had been so peaceful, and even when you woke, and then discovered that he was already awake, you did not tear yourself away from him. You didn’t mind the liberties he’d taken with your sleeping form. You _liked_ them.

And you still liked them. He had yet to find a way to wake you which did not result in that tender, groggy smile of yours. He could picture it now, the way you would squint your eyes, scrunch your face as you looked out at the world to try to find out who had interrupted your sleep, but as soon as your eyes landed on him, you always relaxed into a smile. Maybe he chased the high of that—the high of watching someone who has only just come back into consciousness feel so unabashedly happy at the sight of him that they cannot do anything but smile—and craved it every morning. 

He thought about how you’d looked that first night back in the Tower, how you’d come to his door, all wide eyes and bedhead, and nervously asked him if he’d mind if you stayed over. You were uncharacteristically hesitant, and he got the sense that, if he waited too long, you’d talk yourself out of the request and flee back to your own room. So he’d only reached out to take your wrist and then pulled you into his room, and...that was it. His bed became yours, and yours became his. In the darkness, he’d told himself that this was all it could be. You were just two people who slept better together. But then you pulled him into your circles during your waking hours. The others stopped looking at him with quite so much suspicion. Thor started giving him annoyingly-knowing looks.

And then, right there on the dance floor at one of Stark’s insipid gala events, you’d kissed him for the first time.

And now here you were, in his bed, in his arms, in his heart.

He wasn’t going to let you go.


End file.
